Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said he’s still open to running for president next year, despite his statement almost three years ago that he would back out of politics,
“Anything is possible,” he told the Taipei Times on Monday.
“I believe politicians shouldn’t make an absolute denial on certain things,” said Hsieh, who was the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate in 2008. “I mean, years ago I said I would back out of politics.”
As for making another run for president, Hsieh said: “All sorts of possibilities are possible.”
The DPP is expected to settle on its presidential and vice president nominees in the next two or three months.
Hsieh lost to his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rival, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), by more than 2 million votes, reversing the gains made by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in his 2004 re-election.
However, Hsieh’s popularity has seen a resurgence recently, following his election as a DPP Standing Committee member and a series of comments on cross-strait relations earlier this month.
Hsieh’s return to the ranks of possible candidates has drawn mixed reactions in the DPP, with insiders saying his recent remarks have been “testing the waters.”
“Hsieh is obviously playing word games. He’s making these statements to test the reactions from grassroots supporters,” a Standing Committee member said on condition of anonymity.
DPP legislators have said that regardless of who the party’s presidential candidate turns out to be, they wanted the nomination process to be unmarred by controversy.
“Whatever happens, we don’t want to see the DPP fall back into the kind of infighting of the primaries for 2008,” DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said.
Former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃), who had been seen as a possible contender for the New Taipei City (新北市) mayoral election last year, has reportedly ruled out joining the presidential race.
The Chinese-language United Daily News said Yu was seeking to play a more meaningful role in crafting DPP policy.
The DPP will begin discussing its presidential ticket nominations after the Lunar New Year holiday, with a final decision likely in late March or April, party officials said.
The candidates will be chosen based on public telephone polls, after a recent revision to party rules adopted by the party’s National Congress last Saturday phased out a vote by party members.
Meanwhile, Jack Chen (陳嘉爵), the director of former president Chen Shui-bian’s office, said former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) misquoted her former running mate when she said he opposed the revisions to the selection mechanism.
Lu appeared to have misconstrued Chen Shui-bian’s remarks when the two met at Taipei Prison on Tuesday, Jack Chen said.
“I don’t think she caught Chen Shui-bian’s meaning,” he said. “What he said was that he respected the DPP’s opinion and didn’t want to see internal friction.”
Lu and other DPP politicians have been scrambling to meet the former president, who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption, ahead of next week’s Lunar New Year holiday.
Chen still has a group of supporters, including city councilors and lawmakers, with whom he communicates through biweekly statements known as “A-bian’s Notes.” DPP Secretary-General Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), who led a DPP delegation to visit him yesterday, said the former president kept abreast of political developments.
“I listened to [Chen Shui-bian] the whole visit,” Su said. “He said that as the revisions were passed by 70 percent of the delegates who voted on Saturday … it has become the consensus and everybody should unite [behind it].”
“Because he didn’t believe using polls or a party member vote would have an impact on the final nomination results, he had pushed for such a policy four years ago,” Su said.
Lu, a vocal opponent of the revisions, had quoted Chen Shui-bian as saying that a party that ignored its members was an example of “democracy going backwards.”
Jack Chen and his colleagues said they would be closely monitoring what is said about their boss.
Eight Chinese naval vessels and 24 military aircraft were detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait between 6am yesterday and 6am today, the Ministry of National Defense said this morning. The aircraft entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the ministry said. The armed forces responded with mission aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems to closely monitor the situation, it added. Eight naval vessels, one official ship and 36 aircraft sorties were spotted in total, the ministry said.
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reported the return of large-scale Chinese air force activities after their unexplained absence for more than two weeks, which had prompted speculation regarding Beijing’s motives. China usually sends fighter jets, drones and other military aircraft around the nation on a daily basis. Interruptions to such routine are generally caused by bad weather. The Ministry of National Defense said it had detected 26 Chinese military aircraft in the Taiwan Strait over the previous 24 hours. It last reported that many aircraft on Feb. 25, when it spotted 30 aircraft, saying Beijing was carrying out another “joint combat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) today said that if South Korea does not reply appropriately to its request to correct Taiwan’s name on its e-Arrival card system before March 31, it would take corresponding measures to alter how South Korea is labeled on the online Taiwan Arrival Card system. South Korea’s e-Arrival card system lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan)” in the “point of departure” and “next destination” fields. The ministry said that it changed the nationality for South Koreans on Taiwan’s Alien Resident Certificates from “Korea” to “South Korea” on March 1, in a gesture of goodwill and based on the
RSS